1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to implements for use in preparing sliced food products, and more particularly, according to embodiments of the invention, for use in preparing products having a dough base and at least one topping disposed over the dough base. Embodiments of the invention especially apply to pizza slices for retail sale.
2. Description of Related Art
Pizza products enjoy tremendous popularity throughout the world. Pizza restaurants and others commonly sell single slices of pizza, instead of entire pizza pies, to customers who have e.g. limited time or for other reasons do not wish to purchase a pizza product of substantial size.
To create individual slices for retail sale, restaurants typically prepare and bake an entire pizza pie and then cut it into a desired number of individual portions. This presents a number of disadvantages, however. Following this process can waste a substantial amount of food, given the short shelf life of baked pizza products in a commercial sale environment. This process can also result in non-uniform distribution of cheese and toppings on the individual slices, or non-uniformity from slice to slice. Additionally, the substantial mass of an entire pizza pie can adversely affect various baking parameters associated with the single-slice environment, e.g. it can lengthen the baking time required adequately to heat the center of the pie. Other disadvantages will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art.
Attempts to bake pizza slices individually generally have met with difficulty. Overbaking, excessive browning, hardening, or even burning of individually baked slices are common, especially on the sides of the slice. Placing toppings, cheese and/or tomato sauce on individual slices is also somewhat difficult, given e.g. the relatively small slice sizes desirable for commercial sale.
Although various triangular or triangularly sectioned pans or containers are known in the art (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,452,969, 1,021,640, and 348,839), none of them adequately overcomes the disadvantages noted above in a baking environment. For the first time, the slice pan embodiments of the invention shown and described herein provide significant advantages not known or contemplated in the prior art.
One type of guide apparatus for preparing pie slices is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,777 to Garner, which is incorporated herein by reference. This patent discloses an apparatus for making a split pie, including a dividing assembly to be inserted into a pie pan for separating a pie into sections, each section having a distinct pie filling. The FIG. 13 embodiment is used for making pre-sliced and divided pizza pies. This embodiment can be used to divide and slice a pizza pie into six equal and distinct portions, allowing a different and distinct topping or combination of toppings to be placed onto each portion before the pizza is baked. If six different people want six different toppings, for example, six toppings can be easily applied to the different slices. The divider also ensures that the various pizza toppings do not overflow or run onto adjacent slices. Finally, the sides of the divider are tapered to conform to the shape of the corresponding pan (column 12, lines 32-35).
The Garner embodiments, however, are of significant structural and manufacturing complexity and are believed prohibitively expensive for use on a large scale. The FIG. 13 embodiment, for example, includes upper and lower eyelet-forming means disposed in a central blade 147, as well as eyelet-forming means on additional, separate blades 151, 153. A pivotal connection between first and second rigid V-shaped adjustable members is provided, the members being movable to create sliced sections of unequal dimensions. Mere use of the Garner embodiments in e.g. chain restaurants also would be problematic, as product uniformity would be difficult if not impossible to achieve from restaurant to restaurant, or even from pizza to pizza and slice to slice.
Embodiments of the invention, on the other hand, provide significant advantages while overcoming the above-described and other disadvantages, as will now be described.